Tag Archives: Richmond

We’re off again, this time, we’re doing a little air travel! As anyone who has seen this before may know, instead of a road trip forecast (as there are no roads to Hawaii) we will instead do a flight forecast. I took the top result from Richmond to Honolulu when searching on Kayak.com. As a result, we will be forecasting for a 403 flight from Richmond to Charlotte, followed by a flight to Portland Oregon. We will be in Portland overnight, taking off at 7am Tuesday morning. Shall we fly the friendly skies?

Flight One: RIC-CLT
There has been a sharp trough along the east coast that hasn’t been doing a lot for precipitation, but has been producing a few bumps for travelers. Fortunately, this trough will be kicking off shore by the time we set forth for Charlotte, and the short flight will be at an altitude much lower than where the threat for significant turbulence will be. This should be a pretty decent trip.

Flight 2: CLT-PDX
Obviously, this will be a much longer flight, taking a total of nearly 6 hours to cross the country. It will not be as gracious with the smooth air. Don’t be surprised to feel bumps soon after we cross the Mississippi, as a developing cold front will be touching off some convection, the root cause of what can be the worst turbulence. A surface low developing in the northern Plains will mean we will need to maintain some altitude to avoid the worst of the turbulence. It won’t get much better over the mountains, which are always a little rough, but showers and storms will be developing through the Great Basin as well, within a deep upper level trough. Don’t be surprised if the Captain leaves the “fasten seat belt” sign on for most of the flight to Portland. Landing may be delayed by showers and some low clouds.

Flight 3: PDX-HNL
The jet dynamics of the north Pacific will conspire to slow us down. We will initially need to get above the cloud deck along the Oregon coast, but we won’t want to climb too quickly, as there is a very strong jet stream pointed right at the coast on Tuesday morning. This will make for very rough skies and very slow travel speed. We will stay low, for comfort, though that will mean slower air speed as well, because of various centrifugal affects. After about 2 hours in the air, though, we will be able to climb into a ridge of high pressure that will keep us calm and speeding right along across the rest of the Pacific. Our arrival, just before noon in Hawaii, will be before afternoon showers come sweeping over the northern side of the interior mountains.

There were two oddities that I pointed out in our forecast for Richmond: Forecast.io went very warm with their forecast, while Accuweather simply left rain out of their equation. Then, I said that it would become “extremely rainy latte”. Well, temperatures remained quite cool, it did rain a bit on Tuesday evening, and that rain did not come in the form of coffee. That left our other outlets to secure a potential championship in Richmond. Specifically, it was Weatherbug, who put together a pretty solid Patricia-centric forecast.
Actuals: Monday – High 58, Low 44
Tuesday – .3 inches of rain, High 57, Low 46

Hello, how are you? Ready for a trip? This one will be a 3 1/2 day trek covering 1911 miles. That puts us on a pace of 68.25mph, meaning a daily advance of 546 miles. Let’s pack it up and head out on this voyage.

DAY ONE (Tuesday)

Patricia is going to have a lot to say about our trip, sad to say. She will intercept our route fairly early in the day. As we leave Richmond, it may be dry, but it will still be ominous, with dark clouds on the horizon. Red sky in morning, as they say, road trippers take warning. The dry conditions may last as far as Charlottesville, but I wouldn’t count on it. One nice thing about our route is that it jogs north through Appalachia, which will prevent the rain from being as torrential as it will be around Roanoke and Blacksburg. It will still be mighty damp, certainly, but it won’t be as bad as it could be. Well, not until we reach Kentucky. Universally, guidance suggests us to be inundated in eastern Kentucky, nearly as soon as we cross the state line from West Virginia. We will stop in Middletown, Kentucky, on the east side of Louisville.

DAY TWO (Wednesday)
The majority of the rain will be through Louisville as Patricia jets to the north, and a dry slot infiltrates the central Plains. We will struggle to break out while we are in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. We’ll pass through St. Louis into central Missouri and similarly pass from a drizzly, cloudy mess to a sunny, still damp countryside. It will still be breezy and cool as we cover the Show Me State, with a bit of an improvement in temperature when we reach Kansas City. This is a good omen. Call it a night in Tonganoxie, Kansas, west of KC off the Kansas Turnpike.

DAY THREE (Thursday)
Thursday will be a good day of driving. Kansas should be an easy drive, with sunny skies and not much terrain to navigate. More of the same in eastern Colorado, which will also be sunny and dry. The day will end in the dusty outpost of Peoria, Colorado, which is about an hour east of Denver.

DAY FOUR (Friday)
Fortunately, I-70 doesn’t go to the peaks, though emerging from the Eisenhower Tunnel, it can get a little snowy. There could be a splash of rain along our route west of Denver through Glenwood Springs, with some snowshowers in the Eisenhower Tunnel area, but after that, expect things to clear out as we finish the day in Grand Junction, the last occupied outpost in Colorado.

Good evening! Let’s take a quick break form Patricia coverage and turn our attention to the Mid-Atlantic.

At 954PM, Richmond was reporting a temperature of 58 degrees with mostly cloudy skies. A weak cold front lies over the Carolinas, and a cool north wind is covering Virginia. There may be a bit of lingering low level moisture leading to patchy fog overnight, though that should be an issue primarily confined to the higher terrain of western Virginia.
Of primary concern is the remnants of Patricia, which don’t look much like remnants at this point. There is still very good circulation as the low makes another landfall, this time in southern Louisiana. As the center of circulation drags along the Gulf Coast, moisture will be pulled north towards the Carolinas. A ridge over New England will help suppress that moisture and keep it out Monday, but by Tuesday afternoon, Patricia will arrive in Richmond. Thanks to a broad upper level trough moving through the center of the country, the ridge will kick east, and Patricia will disorganize, but its orphaned moisture will begin to pump north towards the mid-Atlantic, inundating Richmond.
Tomorrow – Mostly cloudy, High 61, Low 50
Tuesday – Cloudy, becoming extremely rainy latte, High 59, Low 46

Wow, a couple of weird ones here. Like Accuweather just leaving rain out of the forecast? FIO going really warm with their forecast? I think this is a case of people relying too much on computer output and being to coarse with the rainfall coverage forecasts. Here is the current satellite, showing a lot of clouds. Everything in the southeastern third of this map is Patricia related.

It wasn’t terribly hot in Richmond over the weekend, but it didn’t need to be, not with dew points in the mid 60s after a torrential rainfall the night before. The rain that fell on Saturday, did suppress temperatures, pinning them in the 70s, but the overnight low didn’t drop below 70s either, which, if you ask me, is worse than an afternoon high in the 90s, in terms of comfort. How are you supposed to sleep when it’s that warm? Accuweather and Forecast.io had the top forecast in the sweltering city.
Actuals: Saturday .67 inches of rain, High 78, Low 70
Sunday – High 85, Low 67

At 254AM, ET, Richmond was reporitng a temperature of 74 degrees with a dew point of 72. There was rain found towards Washington, and fog found in Petersburg just to the south. The base of an upper level trough founded through West Virginia and was producing quite a bit of rainfall in the Mountain State, and was producing a lower level eddy that would carry through to the mid-Atlantic.
The wave will move quickly through Virginia, but will be an efficient rain producer as it moves through the region. Thunderstorms will be heavy along the coast, and will potentially be severe. Interior portions of the state won’t see the strong thunderstorms, but from late morning through the early afternoon, heavy rain will be likely. The wave will move off shore, while a stronger jet feature will begin to move in on Sunday. This will ensure clouds stay in the area, however flow will be counterproductive to shower and thunderstorm production, thanks to the now off shore feature. It will remain warm and very humid for the next several days.
Tomorrow – Rain likely, with some embedded storms, High 80, Low 73
Sunday – Mostly cloudy, High 86, Low 67

NWS: Tomorrow – Showers and thunderstorms likely before noon, then showers and possibly a thunderstorm between noon and 5pm, then showers and thunderstorms likely after 5pm. Some of the storms could produce heavy rainfall High 84, Low 72
Sunday – Mostly sunny High 88, Low 68

A strong cold front has sunk into the center of the country, plunging parts of the upper Midwest to single digits, both above and below 0. Ahead of that front, southerly flow was also quite robust. In Virginia, it was aided by a brisk westerly flow over the Appalachians that led to an even more efficient warming pattern, thanks to some downslope flow and no small degree of cold air damming. Richmond, as a result, was able to see temperatures climb all the way to 70 degrees yesterday. Nobody was expecting that, but if you’re going to err on a temperature, isn’t this the way to go? A rare late November 70 is a treasure, forecast correctly or not. Accuweather ended up with the top spot.Actuals: Saturday – High 52, Low 26
Sunday – High 70, Low 36

We had been missing out some road trips for quite a while, but we’re back in action with our back to back treks. It’s only going to take us a day to cover the 632 hours, albeit a long day, lasting nearly 10 hours. The trip will be at a pace of 64.7 miles an hour, which, given the terrain, isn’t really that slow.

An area of low pressure moving to lie just north of Lake Superior will also move to an area that it can start to draw moisture north from the Gulf of Mexico. Fortunately, we’ll be driving early enough in the day that we will be well be in eastern Kentucky by the time shower activity starts to develop west of Lexington. From there, it’s only about an hour or two to Charleston, and by then, we’re going to be out of the woods, ahead of any shower activity that may develop. We’re going to arrive in Richmond to find sunny skies and increasingly warm temperatures.

We’re off to southeastern Virginia for today’s forecast. It’s about two days too late for the big time weather system, but perhaps we have a little intrigue coming up this weekend?

At 254PM, ET, Richmond was reporting a temperature of 44 degrees with mostly sunny skies. A deep trough is moving off the coast, providing for the chilly conditions this afternoon. A wave developing along the Canadian Border in the Upper Midwest will help to ensure that warmer air is again drawn north and Richmond will see more tolerable conditions.
As the system lifts north into Quebec, warm air will nose further to the northeast. A trough will develop along the western slope of the Appalachians and bring some light rain to there, but over the East Coast, southerly air and even warmer temperatures will be drawn north.
Tomorrow – Mostly sunny, High 50, Low 25
Sunday – Even warmer, a bit breezy, High 62, Low 34.

Seems like a nice couple of days, especially with how crummy it’s been out east lately. Here is the satellite, just showing a few clouds spilling over the Appalachians and not even reaching our forecast city.

Well, today’s road trip from Richmond to Bloomington is a day late. Let’s just say one of our tires blew out 2 miles into the trip and we had to wait a day to get it replaced so we could get back on the road. Hey, it’s actually happened to me before! Anyways, we’re finally on our way to tackle this 797-mile, 2-day trip. Let’s get a move on!

DAY ONE

A cloudy sky greets us to start the day as we head west out of Richmond. An area of low pressure lifting north from the Carolina coastline is bringing us our cloudy start, but the rain showers should stay out over the Atlantic. The clouds burn off some during the morning, but as a cold front approaches from the west, the day should remain cloudy as we make our way into West Virginia. Some scattered rain showers greet us, as well as a thunderstorm or two, as we push further westward, but luckily the activity doesn’t last too long by the time we make our way into northeastern Kentucky. Conditions improve throughout the evening and just some mid-level clouds should remain as we make our way into Cincinnati, our stop for the night.

DAY TWO

Overnight, high pressure dropped south and is parked firmly over the Mid-MS River Valley. It’s gonna be a lovely day from start to finish as we travel westward through Indianapolis, Champaign (where my friend, a fellow meteorology major herself, just got married last weekend!) and eventually get to our destination in Bloomington. A day late, but not a dollar short!

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